Morning journal and courier., 1887-10-26

DOSE of caring for the physical and mora
welfare of the veterans and their DEPENDENT
who need care and aid, and nearly the entir
work of Admiral Foote post is done with tina
purpose only in mind.
Every member of the post is required tt
pay regular dues amounting to three dollar
per year, and two,-thirds of the money re
ceived from that source goes directly into tn
relief fund of the post. It is strict rule o
the post that no portion of this fund can be
used for other than charitable purposes.
The city is invited into districts and {
member of the post is assigned to each dis
trict charged with the duty of reporting
promptly to the general relief committee o.
to the post all cases of sickness or suffering
among veterans and their families needing
assistance. At every weekly meeting of the
post these reports are called for, rendered
and discussed and such assistance given a!
each case is found to require, provided the
post has the means at command to meet thu
case On this plan cases of sickness, wan
and suffering are constantly being relieved il
the quietest, most direct manner possible
with certainty that aid is given only t.
those who are worthy to receive it.
Demands for such aid are becoming NOR
and more urgent and increasing in mum bel
each year, and it is no longer possible fo
Admiral Foote post to respond to them AZ
humanity requires without aid from some
source other than the means acquired from
its own members.
Is it just that in a prosperous and intelli.
gent community like New Haven the active
members of the Grand Army shall be left tt
stand alone in this work?
The large majority of Grand Army mena-
bers are men of small means.
OF the $50 members of Admiral Foots
post a surprisingly small proportion have
means of support beyond the proceeds OF
their own labor.
Outside the active membership of the
Grand Army are large number of veterans
financially unable to join it and pay the small
dues required for the relief fund and a still
larger number of female and minor depend
ents ineligible to direct membership.
1t is from these outside veterans and their
dependents that appeals for aid most fire.
quently come and it is often simply heart
rending to sit in regular meeting of the
post and listen TO the multitude of such most
worthy appeals which the post is financially
powerless to heed.
Many good citizens, unfamiliar with the
facts, suppose that the pension money dis
bursed by the general government every
three months, together with the aid rendered
the veterans by tie State, has put an end to
want and suffering among the veterans of the
war. They should remember that not one in
twenty-five of the veterans living to-day
draws any pension at all and that large
majority of those who do draw but two to
four dollars per month.
The family of pensioner is therefore in
very many cases just as helpless as before
the pension was granted, while the family of
veteran who receives State aid is
often more helpless than before, for the rea-
son that the veteran to receive aid must be-
come himself an inmate of a hospi-
tai or the Soldiers Home, leaving his family
behind.
1t thus often occurs that most distressing
cases of want and suffering occur in families
receiving from the general government bare
ly enough to keep the wolf from the door for
six days every three months, or from the
State nothing at all which help the fe-
male or minor members of the family.
Had the Grand Army not done its work of
fraternity and charity faithfully and well in
the past twenty years the spectacle of poor
with battered cap in one hand and hand
organ crank in the other, would be staring
New Haven people in the face at every turn,
as was beginning to be the case in 1866 and
1867.
The Grand Army has done this work 80
quietly and with SO little ostentation that it
has hardly had credit from the people at
large for doing it at all.
With not salaried officer in the order,
with active and efficient committees con-
stantly investigating calls for relief and with
large allotment of time at each of the
weekly meetings given to reports of such
committees and action necessitated thereby,
it has been able to 80 husband the small in
come from monthly dues of it's members, and
from now and then donation or a successful
lecture or entertainment, as to make every
dollar go directly, and without discrimina-
ton to the extent of dime, right where it
would do the most good to needy and suffer-
ing veterans and their dependents.
Have not the members of the Admiral
Foote post in all the years since the war
been in this silent way doing work in which
all the taxpayers of New Haven might justly
have been called to participated
Are we too presumptuous now in asking
all New Haven people to sympathize and CO.
operate with US in an effort to make the re-
lief fund of the post equal to the work it has
to do?
In every other city in Connecticut the
Grand Army posts have made call upon the
community at large, such as we now make in
New Haven, and the response has been gen.
erous and universal.
Admiral Foote post, being tie largest in
in the State, has been reluctant
to call for aid by any special appeal, until
posts in other towns with less than half its
by making their wants publicly
known, have secured such additions to their
relief funds as to enable them to answer de-
mands which we are compelled to deny.
The post in Meriden by the general and
hearty cooperation of the entire community
has been put in possession of relief fund of
$12, 900.
Bridgeport in the same way has given its
Grand Army post fund of nearly the same,
and Hartford turned out en- masse only last
winter and so literally patronized fair in
augurated by Robert o. Tyler post that the
sum of $40, 006. go was added to the relief
fund as the net result of that single effort
We are not willing to believe that New
Haven will be deaf or Indifferent to like
appeal from the veterans of Admiral Foote
post.
The large number of influential citizens not
themselves veterans of the war who have al
ready consented to serve on committees in
charge of the arrangements for the coming
lair seems to us very encouraging indication
that the public at large will generously re-
spond to this appeal.
Let it be borne in mind that the members
IF Admiral Foote post are not animated in
this work by a desire to shift upon other
shoulders any burden which they are them
selves able TO bear.
They simply seek assistance in o work of
charity which is altogether beyond their own
means, which is steadily increasing in mag
nitude and urgency, which must continue to
increase for several years to come, and which
appeals with equal force to persons of every
creed, party or condition, who have heart
10 appreciate in the midst of prosperity the
services of those who stood on the danger
inc in the days of the nations adversely.
To everyone who may contribute of time
money or merchandise to render the coming
lair success, we give the assurance that
very dollar realized will be most scrupu-
ously held in trust, to be expended only in |
relief to disabled veterans or their |
dependents whose circumstances urgently !
lemand it. Relief extended in this manner,
through committees of Grand Army post, |
ioes not pauperize and degrade the recipi- |
nts as when it goes to them through the |
lands of city or town officials, requiring |
heir names to be recorded on town or city |
ecords as subjects of public charity.
Ours is charity which, in the methods
it's administration, compels the recipient
of only to respect the aourca from Hhenca